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1.3 More Connectives 1.3.1 Conditional and Biconditional

The document discusses connectives like conditional (p → q), biconditional (p ↔ q), converse, and contrapositive. It defines their truth tables and equivalence rules. For example: 1) The conditional "p → q" is true except when p is true and q is false. 2) The biconditional "p ↔ q" is true if and only if p and q have the same truth value. 3) The contrapositive of "p → q" is "(¬q) → (¬p)", while the converse is "q → p". The contrapositive will always be true if the original conditional is, but

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17 views3 pages

1.3 More Connectives 1.3.1 Conditional and Biconditional

The document discusses connectives like conditional (p → q), biconditional (p ↔ q), converse, and contrapositive. It defines their truth tables and equivalence rules. For example: 1) The conditional "p → q" is true except when p is true and q is false. 2) The biconditional "p ↔ q" is true if and only if p and q have the same truth value. 3) The contrapositive of "p → q" is "(¬q) → (¬p)", while the converse is "q → p". The contrapositive will always be true if the original conditional is, but

Uploaded by

Lowell Santua
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1.

3 More Connectives
1.3.1 Conditional and Biconditional
Example 12
Consider the proposition: “If it is raining then it is cloudy”, which we
say is a conditional statement.
Let p =“It is raining”, q =“It is cloudy”. Then the proposition can be written
as “If p then q”.
We symbolize this as p → q. This can also be read as “p implies q”.
The truth table for → is

p q p→q
T T T
T F F .
F T T
F F T

The important case is the second one. We never want something false to
follow from something true; i.e. we do not want “If p then q” to be true if p
is true and q is false. This is the second line above.
*If p is false in a p → q statement then we have to give some truth-value
to p → q. It is a convention to assign the value of True, whatever the
truth-value of q. This leads to the last two lines in the table.
Note
Consider “p only if q”. With the choice of p and q above this becomes “It
is raining only if it is cloudy”. If you believe this statement and you look out
of the window to see it is raining you will conclude that it must be cloudy.
That is, raining has implied cloudy, (and apart from occasional freak weather
conditions, this is what we would expect). Thus we can rewrite the sentence
as “If it is raining then it is cloudy”; i.e. “If p then q” or p → q.
Now consider “p if q”. Again, with p and q as above, this becomes “It is
raining if it is cloudy”. This is telling us that every time it is cloudy then it
must be raining (not a proposition we would believe). Thus we can rewrite
the sentence as “If it is cloudy then it is raining”; i.e. “If q then p” or q → p.

So we symbolize “p only if q” as p → q
and symbolize “p if q” as q → p.

1
Definition
The biconditional p ↔ q is defined by

p q p↔q
T T T
T F F .
F T F
F F T
So p ↔ q is true if p and q have the same truth-values, false if p and q have
different truth-values.
Example 13
Note

p q q→p p→q (p → q) ∧ (q → p)
T T T T T
T F T F F .
F T F T F
F F T T T
So

p↔q ≡ (q → p) ∧ (p → q)
≡ (p if q) and (p only if q) (by notes above)
≡ p if, and only if, q

So we read p ↔ q as “p if, and only if, q” or, in shorthand, “p iff q”.


*Example 14
Let P (p1 , ..., pn ) and Q(p1 , ..., pn ) be two propositional forms (with vari-
ables p1 , ..., pn ). If

P (p1 , ..., pn ) ≡ Q(p1 , ..., pn )


then P and Q are equivalent so

P and Q always take the same truth-value,


i.e. P ↔ Q is always true,
i.e. P ↔ Q is a tautology.
So P ≡ Q is the same as “P ↔ Q is a tautology”.

2
More Rules
Using truth tables the student should check the equivalences in the fol-
lowing three examples:
Example 15 p → q ≡ ( ¬ q) → ( ¬ p).
We say that ( ¬ q) → ( ¬ p) is the contrapositive of p → q.
So the contrapositive of “If it is raining then it is cloudy” is “If it is not
cloudy then it is not raining”.
Note
We say that q → p is the converse of p → q. So the converse of “If it is
raining then it is cloudy” is “If it is cloudy then it is raining”.
Important Converse and contrapositive are different ideas. If a conditional
proposition is true then it’s contrapositive will be true though it’s converse
might well be false.
Example 16 ¬ (p → q) ≡ p ∧ ( ¬ q).
So “It is not the case that if it is raining then it is cloudy” is equivalent
to “It is raining and it is not cloudy”.
Example 17 p → q ≡ ( ¬ p) ∨ q.
So a propositional form containing → can be written without the →. Simi-
larly

p ↔ q ≡ (p → q) ∧ (q → p) (by Ex13)
≡ (( ¬ p) ∨ q) ∧ (( ¬ q) ∨ p). (by Ex17)

So propositional forms containing ↔ can be written without the ↔.


Example 18 Rewrite (p → q) → q without the →.
Solution.

(p → q) → q ≡ (( ¬ (p → q)) ∨ q) (by Ex17)


≡ ((p ∧ ( ¬ q)) ∨ q) (by Ex16)
≡ ((p ∨ q) ∧ (( ¬ q) ∨ q)) (Distributive law)
≡ (p ∨ q) ∧ I (5a)
≡ p ∨ q. (4b)

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